Orga Numbers, Quick Guide

[xmexclusive]

Hi All

In dealing with Citroen cars both for fault finding and particularly with sourcing spares it helps to know when the car was built. Citroen mark the car with a 4 digit number that can be decoded to give the day/month/year of build. On XM's the standard position is centrally between the hinges on the drivers side front door pillar of Left Hand drive cars. As the XM chassis is common to both LHD and RHD cars the marking is put in the same place on both types of XM. So for UK RHD XM's the 4 digit number will be found on the front passenger door pillar. For all but the last couple of years of XM production this ORGA number was painted on the pillar using numbers about 25mm high. There also may be 2 letters which indicate the build factory. Towards the end of the XM production the ORGA number was printed as part of the information on a plastic sticker fixed in the same place.

There are available table guides to the actual ORGA numbers allowing the detailed decoding of actual date. I will add a link later.
For a quick guide, listed below is the July (1st) ORGA's for the years of XM production. This broadly lines up with the Citroen Model year change dates.

Start of the
Date - ORGA-Citroen Model Year
1/7/1989 - 4618 - 1990
1/7/1990 - 4983 - 1991
1/7/1991 - 5348 - 1992
1/7/1992 - 5714 - 1993
1/7/1993 - 6079 - 1994
1/7/1994 - 6444 - 1995
1/7/1995 - 6809 - 1996
1/7/1996 - 7175 - 1997
1/7/1997 - 7540 - 1998
1/7/1998 - 7905 - 1999
1/7/1999 - 8270 - 2000
1/7/2000 - 8635 - 2001
1/7/2001 - 9001 - 2002

This post has been edited by xmexclusive on April 27, 2007 09:47 am

[Little&Large]

Hi John
Thanks for the list.Why did they start at 4618?Presumably more than one car had the same number or the list suggests only 4383 XM's were built.I think Peter is trying to buy all the YBL's,he can start on cars with the same ORGA number now!
Regards Rob

[rowanmoor]

The number is an encoding of the date, it is not specific to a particular car, just the date it was built. I presume they use it on other cars as well.

An ORGA of 1 means 9th November 1976 apparently - presumably when they first started using them.

The link to the calculator is: Calculator.

Cheers,
Rowan.

[xmexclusive]

Hi Rowan

Thanks for adding the link. I see that you own one of the very early 2.5's that the system thinks is a Mk1. The heading on the Mk1 Microfiches lists ORGA 4557-6444. The heading on the Mk2 Microfiches is ORGA 6444-1July1994.

Regards

XMexc

[techmanagain]

I seem to have one of the odd ones! The A pillar says 7760 but when checking at the Dealer against the Vin no. it was 7759. I can live with that - it only seems to mean that it was started to be built one day and finished the next.

[rowanmoor]

Hi XMexc,

My 2.5 is indeed about as early as they come. It is certainly Mk2 in every way (not least that there were no Mk1 2.5s). However, I do come across oddities - like half the cruise wiring loom was missing! I think they were still working out how to put a Mk2 2.5 together after they built mine

I'd love to know where it comes in terms of Mk2s and 2.5s off the production line. May it even be the first? No idea how I would find that out though.

Cheers,
Rowan.

[Zaphod]

The S2 XM is earlier than ORGA 6444, My S2 VSX Turbo CT is 6419

Stewart

[xmexclusive]

Hi Stewart

Mk2 production started well before the 1 July 1994 launch date presumably to supply and stock dealers. Unfortunately the spares records do not seem to recognise these very early Mk2's with a ORG Number lower than 6444. Some club members have also reported build varations and missing features in these early cars.

Regards

XMexc